Sked for backpack trip - Sun, Mon, Tue

[KC9TNH]

I heard and talked with KK0G, but this is NOT a good time from him to Virginia.  It's too far for this time of early evening.  Maybe we can do better in the daytime sked tomorrow.  He IS in camp though, that part came though in his transmission.


>de Radioray ..._ ._

I also heard Gil calling and we talked a bit after the KK0G sked.

I heard you & KK0G; not great but workable. Lost you a couple of times as you doubled.
I concur it is very tough copy on 40m this time of year; summers I don't think that band comes good till midnight or so if you want to use low power. Grayline has too many chips at the table.

Have to ask him when he gets back what he used for an antenna; but he was workable especially if I'd put on the feather-weight set of Koss phones. Imagine that's pretty rough out your way in VA.

Initially I was worried I wouldn't copy you because there's a guy regularly in that area (but down below) that is either abusing his amp in terms of grid current, or running the limit and doesn't know how to tune it because if I zero-beat him he is S9+60dB to me on a really stingy Yaesu meter, and 3.5kHz w.....i.......d......e
Fortunately he left (maybe he let the smoke out). The mix of humanity; he probably parks in handicap spaces too. As Linda Ellerbee said, "...and so it goes."

Perhaps re-thinking early summer evening skeds to something on 20m for the folks here would be amenable, even for those just listening along.

[RadioRay]

This schedule on forty would be better for someone half the distance to him at this time of before darkness. In a couple of hours, he'd likely be fine.



I was using maybe 2 Watts and he's also QRP, at the wrong time of day for that band between us.  It would be great if some of you fellows closer to his location would work him, because I was running on ESP copy here - maybe 50 % . It was less like being a radio-telegrapher and more like working for the Psychic-hotline... like a good salad, but not 'word salad' ha ha.

I'll run some prop numbers and see whether I can come up with better time/freq.  AND as you mentioned, it's prime-time for everyone and their dog to be on the air, so interference is high.  I usually try to pick a frequency outside of the crowd.



>de RadioRay ..._ ._

[RadioRay]

The 20 meter sked was MUCH better!  He's in camp, the weather is 'beautiful' and for those who were wondering, he confirmed that he is using an end-fed-half-wave wire antenna. We talked a little bit about making due with what we have, because he had forgotten to bring a pencil, but had improvised a 'charcoal pencil' for his Morse copy, but said that it was not working very well. 

Gil joined in, but unfortunately he ws not able to copy Chris.


>Ray


Ps. I was running maybe 2 Watts and so is Chris.

[gil]

Gil joined in, but unfortunately he ws not able to copy Chris.

The band sounded pretty dead this morning... I couldn't hear anything anywhere on 20m...

Gil.

[KC9TNH]

Packed with some OTC cold meds I'll see if I can stay awake for the 0000Z 40m sked; should play better here than 20m.

[KC9TNH]

Called Chris last couple minutes of his sked, he calling Gil & Ray & no-joy.
To be fair his distance & bearing from me works pretty good for 40m, less so for way out east probably.

He's doing good, wx in the 70's and, I quote here, "beautiful" - which is a cracker-jack word in Morse.  ;D

He was initially 339 to me, & both sig-strength & copy came up near the bottom of the hour. When we finished I would've said 449, which ain't too shabby t'all.  (I don't rate folks on how you move my S-meter, that first number is what matters to me.) Plenty of QRN & QSB to go around though, glad I used the 817's ears. I figure also the poor soul out in the hinterlands deserves the best signal from the support base, so I cheated & gave him 20w out of the little THP baby amp.

He's doing well, said thanks for checking on him & 73 to all.
As Ray would say, now back to the ward before the nurse finds I'm missing. I owe a friend a SSB call tomorrow too.
. .

[gil]

Ah, darn, I missed the time window... Sorry.

Gil.

[RadioRay]

Thanks for the report!  Good to know that he's doing well out in the woods.  I wish that I was out there as well, but Morse is the next best thing to being there ..._ ._

[gil]

Maybe we should have an annual radiopreppers Ham camping trip! LOL..

Gil.

[RadioRay]

This could be done!  If travel is too far , then we could have camps in different parts of the country and meet on the air.

[KC9TNH]

This could be done!  If travel is too far , then we could have camps in different parts of the country and meet on the air.

I've been collecting some callsigns* & tossing them onto a GE map and your (not ARRL) field weekend could work, or at least be interesting if the coordination was done so that impossible paths aren't in the mix. If someone in a geographically-near cluster relayed to the rest some item (TBD) of traffic, by any means such that it was promulgated to all... and even as a backup, tossed into the WINLINK system for Comrade Piekup Andropov to retrieve later. If someone couldn't get in the bush during the period, if they could act as a base relay for that geographic area... there's a blank sheet of paper here to play with.

No-joy w/Chris on 20m, and didn't expect to, but listened anyway. (We're close enough he could string a wire between 2 bushes and do 40m). This is all interesting, things learned or validated (or not) on these trips.

* those that are made known or that I routinely glean, I don't ferret this stuff out. I'm in a 12-step program for map junkies. 8)

[RadioRay]

I had another good, solid contact with Chris today at noon Eastern on 20 meters.  He's been having a good time, says THANK YOU for the comms support from Gil, Wes and some clown named RadioRay. 

Chris says that he's tired of boiling water and needs a filter. His contact with KC9TNH on forty was STRONG SIG and that worked rather well.

He is scheduled for leaving today at 5 pm.


>de RadioRay ..._ ._


HV GIL 229

GM RAY RST 459 SOLID CPY BT I CAN HEAR GIL BUT VY WEAK
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CAMP IS DOING GUD, TIRED OF BOILING WATER NEED TO GET A WATER FILTER FER NEXT TIME
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W7ASA DE KK0G  RR I WILL HVE TO CHAT WITH U ABT FILTERS WHEN I GET BACK. HVE NOT DONE ANY DXING BECAUSE FORGOT PENCIL SO CANT LOG OR REMEMBER CALLS
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NO HVE NOT DONE ANY SW, ONLY HAD RIG OUT FER SKEDS
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XYL IS PICKING ME UP AT 1700 TODAY
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RRR YES GOT PICTURES WILL POST TO FORUM BT I  TALKED TO KC9TNH LAST NIGHT, HE WAS VY STRONG SIG BTU
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RRR YES DEF..NITELY HVING FUN OUT HERE IN WOODS WETH. //OC: "WITH" ?//  HAM RADIO BT I'M SURPRISED HW WELL I CAN SKED WID U, I SHUD NOT BE THO, CW JUST WORKS HI W7ASA DE KK0G KN
---
RR TNX VRY MUCH RAY I REALLY ENJOYED THE SKEDS ES NICE CHATS BT SEE U BACK IN CIVIL..TION HI SK 73



A little bit of fading, but as you can see, the conversation, using his tiny QRP kit radio to my Wilderness Sierra (a 20 year old kit radio...) , both stations running about 2 Watts into wire antennas worked just fine.  The distance is over 800 miles just about 1,000 miles!. The use of CW QRP from remote locations is VERY do-able and supportable in a field environment. Remember - this rig is about the size of a paperback book and had a built-in shortwave receiver so that he can also listen to news from around the world. It draws extremely little power on receive.

TEOTWAKI comms anyone?

[gil]

I had a good, solid contact with Chris today at noon Eastern.

Unfortunately I never heard a peep. I suspect that had I been away from town and electrical noise, I would have heard him fine, as he reportedly heard me 229. We once had a faint contact on 40m before his trip, but I suspect he is just on the edge of my skip zone. That said, I could barely hear Ray, and he usually comes in strong here, even QRP. The band just wasn't cooperating.

An annual radiopreppers camping meetup would be great indeed, even if some would only be on the air. I see how hard it is to get three people on the air together at any scheduled time though, so organizing something like that may prove difficult. Suggestions are welcome. Maybe we need a new thread on this, not to steal this one...

Ya'll have a great day  :)

Gil.

[KC9TNH]

An annual radiopreppers camping meetup would be great indeed... Maybe we need a new thread on this, not to steal this one...

Ya'll have a great day  :)

Gil.

Separate thread is a GREAT idea; surely that one would get busy in a hurry. Should see how Chris' AAR goes and think about our own version of a "field" day. Then if it starts looking like it's a go in terms of participation you can sticky it.

ETA: I'll have to go back & skim some threads & put as many calls on the map as possible. Right now I've got you, Ray, Tim, Luck, Stew & Chris & ich. Like there's this mid-west cluster, then there's those easterners with the big salt-water counterpoises around.

[KK0G]

I'm back and I had a shower so I'm officially back in civilization  ;D

First things first, thank you very much to Ray, Gil and Wes for the skeds - or attempt at a sked in Gil's case but we gave it a shot and we at least learned that 40 meters will not work between us at that time. I read through the posts and it looks like you guys pretty well covered the sked contents. Yes the weather was truly beautiful, sunny, 70's, light breeze and not a drop of rain, it felt almost like cheating.......... almost 8)

The first leg was a short 1.5 mile hike from my drop off point. I spent the first evening in Buck Stop Camp which was amazingly beautiful next to a row of pine trees on a ridge, with lots of tall trees conveniently placed for antenna supports. The next day I hiked about 3.5 miles to Longbeard Camp, this one wasn't quite as nice as the other one but still a pretty neat campsite and it had a perfect single limb jutting out from a tree that got my antenna about 30 feet in the air. (The Google savvy among you could probably figure out where I was)

My little Elecraft KX1 and EFHW antenna worked excellent, when propagation was good it was armchair copy just like sitting in my shack at home. My "yo-yo" antenna set up worked pretty well but I think it could still use some improvement, 60 feet of 24ga. speaker wire is a very tight fit and they're fairly fragile.

As Ray pointed out I forgot my pencil which was both good and bad. Bad because I couldn't write down callsigns, times, signal reports, etc for logging. Good because it forced me to head copy which I seldom do, instead relying on the crutch of writing down code as it's sent.

I definitely need to get a water filter!! Most of my woods experience has been while canoeing on rivers where I'm able to carry more fresh water and when resupply is needed it's usually less than 50 feet away from camp, it's also easier to carry a large pot for boiling. When I backpacked at Philmont we had a filter and I really took it for granted how much simpler it makes roaming the woods. While water is dirt simple to find here in Iowa, both of my campsites were on top of ridges which meant about a 1 mile round trip down to the creek to carry two liters of water back to camp where I only had a pot a little less than a liter to boil in. I did this once in the morning and once in the evening. It would be SO much easier to just fill my bottles when crossing creeks while on the trail to camp. This was such an issue for me that I'll start another thread on the subject.

To sum it up, I had a great time and learned a lot in the process. Being able to hear a familiar callsign and chat while all alone in a remote backwoods camp is simply amazing, the peace of mind knowing that help is only a call away is also comforting. The key to all of this working is CW, without it it would be extremely difficult if not near impossible.